David Kowis wrote:
> Quoting Jason Meridth <jmeridth at gmail.com>:
>>>>> Factoring of code is useful, just like comments. If a programmer is too
>>> lazy to
>>> add comments, then they are probably too lazy to factor code. They
>>> probably
>>> just cut and paste similar code and make minor changes. Of course
>>> they are
>>> poor
>>> programmers.
>>>>>> Your lazy comment is also a stab. When a board member responds like
>> this, it's shows what the higher membership of the group contains.
>> I didn't think this was a stab either. Just that a lazy programmer is a
> crappy programmer. And that he believes that comments are useful. Don't
> take things so personally...
I was not responding as a board member. I was responding as one who's
dissertation was entitled: "The Effect of Comment and Code Style on Software
Maintenance." Fundamentally it was a study of industrial code that was
evaluated for maintainability by experienced software engineers. The bottom
line was that the more comments that were in the code, up to a fairly high
threshold, the more maintainable it was perceived by programmers who had not
seen the code before.
My opinions are formed as a result of formal and informal research and more than
30 years of experience as a programmer and supervisor of programmers.
Beyond that, I *never* intentionally call people names on a list. Things
sometimes get read into comments that I don't intend, but unfortunately that is
the nature of mailing list postings.
I do not have the time or inclination to go into this any more, so I will not
respond again.
-- Bruce